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Sony Online Entertainment has announced that beta sign ups have begun for the next EverQuest expansion. Called "Rain of Fear", the expansion brings expanded character customization, new in-game items and a new level 100 cap.

The Harbingers of Thule entreat you to gather the essence of their lost god before it falls into the hands of others. You will uncover the mysteries of the giant crystals that have fallen to Norrath. Explore newly discovered lands and revisit the frozen wastes of Velious. Battle old foes empowered by shards, confront them and reclaim the power of fear.

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They aren't making these new expansions for the "new" player.. They are for the top heavy playerbase of very very loyal members who have probably been playing since its inception..

Level cap raise to 100? Have any idea how long it takes to even get to 80? And then work on AA's to a reasonable level etc?

I like what SOE is doing for that loyal fanbase though.. They are keping the game alive for them, the few that are paying them for access.. So many negative things to say about SoE, but at least they aren't pulling an NCSoft and killing a game that is still benefiting them in some way..

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Originally posted by OzmodanI do not grasp why they bother putting out expansions for this game anymore. There cannot be many people that purchase them anymore.

Because they are able to develop expansions with very small budgets such that even with a tiny playerbase they still turn a profit.

The expansions aren't as good or as big as they were during the game's prime, probably mostly due to budget reasons, which is why I'm no longer playing the game, but the game still has its niche and anyone who is left playing at this point is probaly unlikely to stop until the servers eventually shut down or they stop releasing content.

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It will definitely sell more than 5k copies. There are still about 15 servers running. My guess would be there are somewhere around 50-60k paying subscribers. Still not a lot, but enough to develop content with a small budget.

As for SoE developing an EQ clone, I don't see it happening. A MMO like pre-LDoN Everquest would do terrible today. I don't even know if I'd play it, despite EQ being my all time favorite MMO.

Now, if they could develop an MMO with some of the best features of EQ while removing some of the tedium like massive recovery time between fights, naked corpse runs, fighting with other guilds over seven day raid spawns, etc, then they might have something.

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Originally posted by nuttobThis game now goes to 11! ...er 100, and I can only imagine what platinum is worth nowdays. Inflation in that game should force the devs to make a currency coin worth 100 pp...no 1000pp!

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Originally posted by sirphobos

It will definitely sell more than 5k copies. There are still about 15 servers running. My guess would be there are somewhere around 50-60k paying subscribers. Still not a lot, but enough to develop content with a small budget.

As for SoE developing an EQ clone, I don't see it happening. A MMO like pre-LDoN Everquest would do terrible today. I don't even know if I'd play it, despite EQ being my all time favorite MMO.

Now, if they could develop an MMO with some of the best features of EQ while removing some of the tedium like massive recovery time between fights, naked corpse runs, fighting with other guilds over seven day raid spawns, etc, then they might have something.

Seeing that I don't think they ever got over 400K, then 50k to 60k would still be a pretty good amount to have. People don't realize that the guys from the huge guilds that made EQ what it is went on to work on other games such as WOW. My old guild (FOH) leader was hired to work on epic quest by Blizzard well before it came out. There are several others from my guild alone that went to work in the gaming biz on some of the biggest games out just from making a name for themselves in playing this game alone.

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Originally posted by sirphobos

It will definitely sell more than 5k copies. There are still about 15 servers running. My guess would be there are somewhere around 50-60k paying subscribers. Still not a lot, but enough to develop content with a small budget.

As for SoE developing an EQ clone, I don't see it happening. A MMO like pre-LDoN Everquest would do terrible today. I don't even know if I'd play it, despite EQ being my all time favorite MMO.

Now, if they could develop an MMO with some of the best features of EQ while removing some of the tedium like massive recovery time between fights, naked corpse runs, fighting with other guilds over seven day raid spawns, etc, then they might have something.

I think 50k people still playing EQ is fair. However, those 50k people probably total 100k paying accounts with all the multi boxing.